Meek Says She's Had Long Run, Announces Retirement

July 8, 2002|By David CM-azares Miami Bureau and Staff Writer Lona O'Connor, Maya Bell of the Orlando Sentinel and WFOR-Ch. 4 contributed to this report.

U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek, D-Miami, the first black person from Florida to be elected to Congress since Reconstruction and a powerful voice for blacks, immigrants, women, senior citizens and the poor, has decided to retire at the end of her fifth term.

Meek, 76, made the announcement Sunday at Mt. Tabor Missionary Baptist Church, where she began her political career 23 years ago. The daughter of sharecroppers and the granddaughter of a slave, Meek is an institution in the state's Democratic Party and a beloved icon in Miami-Dade County's black community.

But Meek said Sunday that she was ready to slow down and would like to help her constituents in a different way: by setting up the Carrie Meek Foundation, which will do charitable work in education, scholarships and housing.

"It's been a long run and a good one," Meek said Sunday. "I can afford now to sit back and leave room for someone else."

For Meek, her successor couldn't be more clear.

Her decision to step down paves the way for her son, State Sen. Kendrick Meek, to run for her seat this fall. The congresswoman said that it was of the "highest importance" that he follow her to Washington.

Perhaps that's why she wasted no time in endorsing his expected candidacy -- and promised to campaign vigorously on his behalf, saying that her son has paid his political dues and served his constituents well.

"He's the best; I'll be working 24-7 for him," Carrie Meek said. "He's been out there working. He didn't just fall off a turnip truck. He's been an outstanding senator. He knows this community."

Expected to announce his candidacy for Congress today, Kendrick Meek preferred to talk on Sunday about his mother's legacy.

"She's the perfect example of strong leadership in public service," Kendrick Meek said. "It will be many years before she decides to sit at home and flip cable channels. She's going to be our chairperson. I've never seen her take the back seat. She's at the top of her game."

Democratic Party officials and political observers, however, had no qualms about discussing Kendrick Meek's expanding political fortunes. Already a rising star in the party who has opposed Republican Gov. Jeb Bush on affirmative action and other issues, the younger Meek is known for being accessible, in touch with his community -- and his mother's son.

"There is no question that he's the heir apparent, and a formidable candidate," said Susan MacManus, political science professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa. "He is not likely to be beaten."

As a candidate, Meek will inherit his mother's formidable political machine, which stands ready to work for him, said longtime political activist Irby McKnight, whose base is Overtown and other black neighborhoods nearby.

In attempting to follow his mother, however, Meek will have big shoes to fill.

As a child, Carrie Meek lived in a section of Tallahassee called the Black Bottom, and suffered the indignities of poverty and segregation. But she didn't let that stop her, earning bachelor's degrees from Florida A&M University and a master's degree from the University of Michigan.

She coached women's basketball and taught at Florida A&M, and later served as special assistant to the vice president of Miami-Dade Community College.

Carrie Meek was elected to the state House in 1978 and became the first black woman ever elected to the Florida Senate in 1982, where she earned a reputation as a superb politician and passionate advocate for her community.

In 1992, at age 66, she was elected to Congressional District 17 in Miami-Dade, one of three black majority districts drawn during a bitter political fight. She ran unopposed in her past two elections.

The congresswoman was hospitalized in December 2001 with abdominal pains and was diagnosed with shingles, a common viral inflammation of the nerves that can often cause severe pain. But she said Sunday that she was not too old to serve, merely interested in doing so from South Florida.

McKnight said Meek has been so successful because she combined a sharp intellect with the common touch -- something anyone who follows her will have to emulate to have any hope of surviving.

"If you're not going to be the person who the little mother in the projects can approach, you're not the one," McKnight said. "For the kid down the block with no father, a scholarship to school, a way out, is what you're elected to do.

"Kendrick can be that person."

But in seeking the seat, Kendrick Meek will be running in a district that was redrawn by the Republican-controlled state Legislature to have a smaller percentage of African-American voters.

Carrie Meek, along with U.S. Reps. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, and Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, sued in federal court to have the new boundaries overturned on the grounds they unconstitutionally dilute black voting strength. But last week, a three-judge panel said the Democrats had not met their burden of proof.